Melbourne, Florida (CNN) President
Donald Trump, after a month of arduous and, at times, turbulent
governing, got what he came for Saturday during a dusk rally here:
Campaign-level adulation.

Trump,
who just months ago finished campaigning for the office he now holds,
was both selling what his administration has done in its first 30 days
and trying to change the subject after a chaotic month. The President
was forced to fire his national security adviser, struggled to roll out
his travel ban and strained to explain a growing story about how members
of his 2016 campaign made repeated contact with Russian individuals
known to US intelligence.

Trump,
clearly ready for some relief from the confines of Washington and the
limitations of the house he ran to occupy, reverted back to his campaign
habits, basking in what energized him for months during the slog of his
race against Hillary Clinton.

At
one point, Trump invited Gene Huber -- a supporter who said he arrived
at the venue at 4 a.m. ET to be the first in line for the event -- up to
the stage. The man was briefly stopped by the Secret Service before the
President urged agents to let him come up and address the audience.

"I wouldn't say Secret Service was thrilled with that ... but we know our people," Trump said.

The moment evoked some of the unscripted flashes that defined Trump's 2016 campaign.

"I
am here because I want to be among my friends and among the people,"
Trump said to open his rally. "This was a great movement, a movement
like has never been seen before in our country or before anywhere else,
this was a truly great movement and I want to be here with you and I
will always be with you."

Trump, as
he did often during the campaign, turned his fire on the media during
the packed event -- estimated to number 9,000, according to Melbourne
police -- slammed international trade deals made by his predecessors and
pledged to bring back the jobs to the United States.

The
President said his administration would release a new immigration order
"over the next couple of days" that aimed to curb the flow of refugees.

Slamming
the judges who decided the order was unconstitutional, Trump even read
the US code that he believes gives him the authority to implement the
executive order.

"If you have a
college education you can understand it. If you have a high school
education, you can understand it. If you were a bad student in high
school, you can understand it," he said.

But Saturday's rally was
different: Trump pulled up in Air Force One, not his private plane,
stepping off the plane with first lady Melania Trump as his crowd roared
and the speakers blared the theme song from the 1997 Harrison Ford
movie "Air Force One."

"When the
media lies to the people, I will never let them get away with it. I will
do whatever I can so they don't get away with it. They have their own
agenda and their agenda is not your agenda," Trump said Saturday.

As he bellowed, event attendees turned to the pen where the media stood and booed.

Trump
previewed these attacks in the days leading up to his event, tweeting
Friday that a list of outlets were "the enemy of the American People!"

Trump
also looked to rebut reports of a chaotic White House, telling
supporters, "the White House is running so smoothly, so smoothly."

What
was unclear Saturday was what exactly Trump was campaigning for. The
event was being run by Trump's 2016 campaign, Donald J. Trump for
President Inc.

Before taking the stage, Trump was asked if it was too early to do another campaign event. His response: "Life is a campaign."

"Making
our country great again is a campaign," Trump added. "For me, it's a
campaign. To make America great again is absolutely a campaign."

On Friday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was headlining the event as a way to go around the media.

"People
in this circle don't always do the best job delivering his message
(because) nobody does it better than he does," Sanders said about the
media.

"So he can do that very
easily by taking the stage and talking directly to the people of
America, addressing their concerns and being able to properly express
exactly what he's doing and what his administration has done over the
last month," Sanders said on Air Force One as the plane headed south to
Florida.

Trump's presidential
campaign was defined by raucous events where he would deliver hour-long
stemwinders, responding directly to the chants of the crowd and
seemingly plugging into the energy that his supporters were throwing his
way.

Former campaign aides said
before the that they were not surprised Trump was getting back on the
road so early in his first term, in part because it was what fueled him
for months on the campaign trail.

Michael
Caputo, a former senior adviser to Trump's campaign, said he expects
this sort of campaign-style event will be the "first of many."

"He
grew very familiar with the rally concept and I expect him to return to
where he is comfortable when he needs to recharge," Caputo said. "The
fact that Trump showed us a new way of winning should have given
everyone a hint that he would show everyone a new way of governing."

Heathcote Williams: Two for Trump

The preposterous now seems possible. Say it with me: "President Trump": image via David Horsey @davidhorsey, 25 February 2016

Heathcote Williams: The Statue of Liberty’s Burka

The President is obsessed with deporting Arabs
Although, by a superb comic irony,
It was an Arab who modeled for the United States’ icon --
Namely the Statue of Liberty.

The sculptor’s monument was initially designed
For the opening of the Suez canal:
The original depicted an Arab woman holding a torch.
It was destined for the canal’s southern portal.

His first drawings show “a gigantic female fellah, or Arab peasant”
With a veil modestly hiding her lips,
The sculptor told Egypt’s ruler she represented “Progress”
A beacon, to light the way for oncoming ships.

Unfortunately for the artist, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi,
Egypt’s bankrupt Khedive couldn’t afford its installation
But undeterred, Bartholdi recycled it and offered it to New York
To commemorate the American revolution.

Its first title had been, “Egypt carrying the Light to Asia’
But now the figure’s veil would be removed
And for his prospective US clients Bartholdi called it,
“Liberty enlightening the world”.

But despite Bartholdi’s tweaking the flowing Arab garments
And his turning them into Graeco-Roman dress,
It’s still a huge stone Arab that occupies New York Harbour,
Making fun of the President’s petty mindedness –

And of the President’s paranoia for far more Americans die
As a result of their falling out of bed,
Or their being stung by bees rather than being killed by terrorists
Never mind their fellow-citizens shooting them dead.

Despite the most worthless President in US history
Wishing to banish all Arabs from his shores
An Arab giantess in New York is welcoming migrants
And giving the lie to his immigration laws.

However much the President may demonise Arabs
There’s one who’s rooted to the ground,
Making a better job of symbolising American liberty
Without her having to utter a sound.

Heathcote Williams: Donald J. Trump: president of the US plutocratic pornocracy

I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see – Donald Trump

On buying a beauty spot in Scotland for a golf-course
And for luxury condominiums,
Trump notices some old houses on the horizon
And he orders them bulldozed to oblivion.

On seeing a woman that he desires, he oafishly
Recommends “grabbing her pussy”.
He boasts that, ‘My fame lets me take liberties;
‘My fame allows me to abuse her.’

Trump’s grandfather ran brothels in the Yukon
And to his grandson, people are also for sale.
Trump’s ego tells him he has supernatural powers
And that almost nothing is beyond the pale.

“I will deport 12 million Latinos”, Donald Trump insists --
This buddy of asset strippers and union busters --
A charlatan who papers over his character’s cracks
With bank loans and with megalomaniac bluster.

Trump was a casino owner (a synonym for gangster),
A suitable past for the President of casino capitalism
Who boasts about who he’s been able to shake down,
And who also represents a home-grown neo-fascism.

Trump’s a demagogue who’s prone to magical thinking
With a compulsion to build concrete penises
Upon which his name appears in enormous letters
And whose robotic staff repeat, “he’s a genius”.

He has pretended to be anti-establishment
And to be standing up for the little guy
Yet without Wall Street and the Deutsche Bank
This exhibitionist parasite would die.

He’s a slave to his monumental indebtedness.
He owes 600 million dollars.
But now that he’s President he can pay his creditors,The mob and their sinister callers --

While doubtless remaining reluctant to pay taxes
For he regards tax evasion as an art.
When challenged about his not filing tax returns
He brags, “That makes me smart.”

He’s risen to power on the magniloquent claim
That he’ll make America great
While representing the lowest common denominator
Of his country’s racist hate.

In 1992 the Casino Control Commission fined him $200,000
For removing African-American card dealers
From his Plaza Hotel’s casino to appease the racism
Of the Plaza’s big-spending gamblers.

Trump would disparage his black casino employees as “lazy”.
“I’ve got black accountants and isn’t it funny?” he’d say,
“Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people
“I want are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”

“When Donald and Ivanka came to the casino”,
Recalls Kip Brown, an employee at Trump’s Castle,
“The bosses would order all the black people off the floor,”
He told the New Yorker in a 2015 article.

Regarding an African-American President
As an affront to his Aryan sensibility,
Trump became vocal in the ‘Birther’ movement
Questioning Obama’s legitimacy.

Trump failed to disavow the Ku Klux Klan
When they supported his candidacy.
He’d airily pretend he didn’t know who they were
With an ignorance approaching lunacy.

Donald J. Trump has been elected President
Of the US’s plutocratic pornocracy --
A plot twist, and suddenly the whole world
Is having to adjust to his squalid reality.

He believes women should suffer punishment
If they decide to have abortions.
He sees life as conquest and victory and winning,
As if in a childish competition.

In a half-hearted apology for mocking women’s looks
Trump says he does it “to be entertaining” --
Unaware that he himself is overweight and bright orange
And hardly qualifies as an oil painting.

“I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
Says Trump who advocates torture.
“When I say they’ll do as I tell them, they’ll do as I tell them,” Is how he plans to overcome any legal stricture.